What you’ll find below…
- Our Move
- Health Update
- Video of the Move
Hi Friends,
We are just coming off a stressful move and looking ahead at a lot of big unknowns. It feels pretty overwhelming at times, but God is faithful to send encouragement through His people and through His Word.
Some encouragement from His Word came over the last few days from the lives of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham waited 25 years for God’s promise of many descendants to begin to find fulfillment in the birth of Isaac. Then Isaac had to wait 20 years from the time he married Rebecca until Jacob and Esau were born. In Scripture, those years for Isaac are skimmed over in just a matter of verses, (Genesis 25:19-26) but imagine how it must have felt living through it and wondering if God would really keep His promise after all. The first 2 generations of God’s chosen nation started with barren wives and only 3 children. Proof again that God’s ways are not exactly our ways, but they always work out for the best; both for His people and for His eternal glory.
Now don’t misunderstand. We haven’t received any specific promise from God of how our lives and ministry will turn out. We are merely willing to be used by Him here in this place of great need. And yet He hasn’t made a way for us to do that in the way that we would have expected (thus far). Is that okay? We think so. His ways are better than ours and we can trust Him.
Isaiah 55:9 – For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
We moved… But not to the village –
Due to the lack of permission to move into one of the villages we’ve been focusing on, we have moved islands to a big town closer to that area. Our rental house has needed a lot of work, but we are SO thankful for Allegra’s brother Andru and a friend, Joel, who came for 2 weeks to help us! They are heroes! Thanks to those who helped them come or sent treats for us! That was one of those ways God uses His people to encourage us.
Now we are settling into life in our new home, praying for clarity regarding next steps, and asking the Lord to re-open these doors to future ministry. Meanwhile, as we work towards reaching those villages, we also want to reach our neighbors and the people we meet here in town. Please pray for us to have love and boldness from the Lord. Pray also for God to direct us and show us what to do next—it’s all on Him at this point.
On a more encouraging note, remember how we divided our larger team into two? Well, the second team is returning to an old lead and has made some progress towards getting permission to work in another language group. Please pray for Team 2 to be able to work with the ‘M’ people. We will do anything we can to help them in that process as well.
Health Update –
– Tyler is still working on physical therapy for his torn ACL but of course that will take many months. Although challenging in the midst of a move, it is still improving.
– Allegra’s hair fallout has seen some improvement, for which we are thankful.
– Our coworker (and his son) has Dengue Fever right now which is what Tyler had last year. It’s such a long, nasty illness and has been rough for their family. We delayed our trip to the American consulate to get Moriah’s passport renewal so we could help them get through this sickness. We hope to be able to go soon since we need that for our next round of visas here.
Thank you for your prayers in these areas!
Praise:
- For a successful move—(and that it’s behind us!).
- For Andru and Joel coming to help on our house.
- For Team 2 having a possible opportunity to work with the ‘M’ people.
- Tyler’s parents get to come for a short visit this month!!
Prayer:
- For direction regarding the next steps in working with the unreached here.
- For God to change the minds/hearts of the kings who have rejected us.
- For boldness and courage to reach out to people here in town
- For the health issues we’ve been facing especially our coworker’s Dengue Fever.
